Warning: high propeller-head content that I'm not going to bother translating into the English. Apologies.
Since I wrote this batch of sour grapes, I've taken action so that foolishness like this doesn't rear its head and piss me off quite so much in my daily activities.
That's action like this in my dotfiles:
REAL_OSTYPE=`uname -s`
export REAL_OSTYPE
if [ "x${REAL_OSTYPE}" = "xSunOS" ]; then
EXINIT='se ws wm=12 sm ts=2'
elif [ "x${REAL_OSTYPE}" = "xLinux" ]; then
EXINIT='se ws wm=12 sm ts=2 matchtime=1 compatible'
else
EXINIT='se ws wm=12 sm ts=2 matchtime=1'
fi
export EXINIT
See, the problem here is that Solaris sports a real vi(1). Linux has a vi(1) that's a thinly veiled Vim iff it's running in compatibility mode which (see above referenced post) Red Hat has gone to ridiculously exorbitant means to break, and NetBSD (what all of my computers run) has nvi, which, though it claims to be a “bug-for-bug” vi(1) clone, is obviously lying.
Am I a hypocrite for liking matchtime=1 but saying I don't want context-highlighting forced on me? I don't think so. I might use context-highlighting if it served my purpose… but with xterms using the colors mine do (dark background, light foreground) the default colors make the text more difficult to read, not less so. And, no it wouldn't be easier to figure out how to set colors I liked, because I'd then have Yet Another Dotfile to push out to new machines as part of my environment (and keep in sync when I changed my mind or added something). It's far easier to just turn all that horseshit off till such time as I want it.
And that time will probably NEVER COME. Because I can only see myself wanting those kinds of aids if I took a development job (which is possible; hey, Apple, Veritas, WindRiver, Wasabi, you listening?)… at which point I would almost definitely use XEmacs in Viper mode.
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